Stories From A Children’s Hospital

Project Description

Stories From A Children’s Hospital

5 x 27 minute documentary

Princess Margaret Hospital for Children in Perth, Western Australia is home to a multitude of dramatic, inspirational and sometimes tragic stories of children and health. Through the eyes of staff, patients and parents, we enter the inner sanctum of this distinguished hospital and observe the daily battles to provide world class paediatric care.

As the human drama unfolds, we reveal the issues, the ethics, the priorities and the dilemmas faced by staff and patients. And in a unique twist we uncover the inner workings of science in a world where life and death – and quality of survival – are at stake. This is a realm where science sometimes succeeds, sometimes fails … and real people depend on the outcome. From the bench-top to the bedside, Stories From A Children’s Hospital is the human face of science – science in action in a public hospital; science struggling to save children’s lives.

Episode 1: The Cost of Living
Born 17 weeks too soon, tiny baby Diane is kept alive by the latest in medical science. But the cost of premature birth is enormous.

Episode 2 & 3: Chloe
Thirteen-year-old Chloe is fighting leukaemia for the second time in her young life. Her story is a poignant and heart-rending revelation of how modern medicine deals with this disease.

Episode 4: Skin Deep
Acclaimed burns surgeon, Dr Fiona Wood, leads a team of scientists, doctors and nurses working to save the lives of young children, and make ‘scarless healing’ a reality.

Episode 5: Outreach
Dr Luigi D’Orsogna travels to the Kimberley in the state’s north to monitor aboriginal children with heart problems caused by rheumatic fever. But it’s more a token gesture, a mere band-aid on a much larger social and political problem.